Files

2.6 KiB
Raw Permalink Blame History

nyt-the-daily — New York Times Editorial

  • School: Information Architecture
  • Vibe: Authoritative broadsheet, generations of typographic craft
  • Best for: Longform editorial, news / journalism products, narrative explainers
  • Touchstone: nytimes.com homepage, NYT Cooking, NYT investigative features

Palette

  • Ground: #FFFFFF
  • Ink: #121212
  • Secondary text: #666666
  • NYT red #D0021B — used only for breaking-news indicators or sparingly
  • Soft section background: #F7F7F7
  • Hairline: #E2E2E2

Typography

  • Display: Cheltenham (NYT's proprietary) — substitute Sentinel or Tiempos Headline. Weight 700 for hero, italic widely used.
  • Subhead: Imperial or Lyon Display at weight 400
  • Body: Imperial / Georgia / source serif at 18–20px, line-height ~1.55
  • Sans for UI / kickers: Franklin (NYT) — substitute Söhne Mono or Söhne, weight 500, often in small caps

Spacing: 4 / 8 / 16 / 24 / 32 / 48 / 96. Multi-column grids for stories.

Radius: 0 throughout.

Shadow: none.

Motion: minimal — sticky bylines, lazy-loaded images fading in, slow zoom on hero photo over 8–15s.

Signature moves

  • Three-deck hierarchy: tiny eyebrow ("OPINION" / "ANALYSIS" / "INVESTIGATION" in small-caps sans) → bold serif headline → italic serif standfirst
  • Byline + timestamp block in sans below the headline, always
  • Pull-quotes set in italic serif at 1.5–2× body size, with hairline rules above and below
  • Multi-column body copy on wide viewports; single column on mobile (always readable)
  • Inline images with serif captions; captions matter and are styled distinctively

Avoid

  • Sans-serif headlines (the recipe's signature is the serif voice)
  • Card grids of articles — NYT lays articles out as a front page, with hierarchy by size
  • Pretty UI buttons in the body of articles
  • Centered alignment for body (left-aligned justified is the recipe)

AI prompt seed

Editorial photojournalism, single decisive moment image, natural lighting, 3:2 aspect, color grading neutral with slight desaturation, real-feeling not staged, place-specific.

Don't use when

  • The product is a SaaS dashboard — NYT craft reads as overformal there
  • Content is short and punchy (one-line CTAs) — NYT needs longform to land
  • The brand has no editorial / authority claim — using NYT voice without the substance reads as cosplay

Same school — Information Architecture: pentagram · vignelli-swiss-helvetica · bloomberg-terminal · tufte-dataink
Browse all 25 recipes: INDEX.md